Old boy Abbott blamed by students over refugee policy

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are among five Jesuit-educated MPs criticised by the students' letter. Both sides of politics were included, through Labor's Bill Shorten.

AAP: Alan Porritt

Students from Sydney's prestigious Catholic high school St Ignatius' College, Riverview, have accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and other Jesuit-educated MPs of "moral bankruptcy" over their asylum seeker policies.

The Jesuit order founded the college in 1880, and Mr Abbott was a student there along with the Nationals' Barnaby Joyce.

A group of senior students from St Ignatius' has written to Mr Abbott, Mr Joyce and three other Jesuit-educated federal MPs, Joe Hockey, Christopher Pyne and Labor Minister Bill Shorten.

The students are members of the school's AT Thomas Advocacy Group, which focuses on human rights issues.

"The mission of the Jesuits and all their ministries is 'the service of faith and the promotion of justice'," the letter says

"The currently proposed solutions to the so-called 'refugee problem' by both the Labor Party and Liberal-National Coalition are inhumane and unjust.

"They betray our national character of being large-hearted, of giving someone 'a fair go', and of 'helping the battler'. They lack moral courage and, in the light of our international obligations, may be illegal.

"We feel compelled to express our disappointment that, as graduates of our Jesuit schools, you would allow those principles, cultivated in our common tradition, to be betrayed."

The chair of the group behind the letter is Year 12 student Henry Gallager.

"We feel that the Jesuit notions that we try to educate at Riverview aren't really being expressed so much, because of their behaviour towards them," he said.

"When you try to use refugees effectively as a tool to try and win votes, which is what we feel they've been doing, as opposed to actually considering the humanity behind it, which is what we tend to advocate for."